Up up and a-mulloway!Nabeel Issa | First Published: November 2015

Slabs of silver have been a plenty! The Moreton Bay mulloway are out in force and many anglers have been out getting stuck into them. October weather was unpredictable so chances to head out have been few and far between. However, those getting out have been rewarded with snapper, mulloway and bream all playing the game and quite easily captured.

Bream

October saw the temperatures rise, with the hint that summer is well and truly on its way. Now is a great time to get stuck into some bream on surface lures, especially if it’s not something you do regularly. As the water warms, the bream shake off the winter lethargy and will start attacking lures with plenty of gusto! Most of the Bay Islands are worth a shot, just look to get as shallow as you can, as the fish will move well up into the banks searching for food. I like using pencil shaped lures as they cast very well and have a very enticing action when worked on the surface. Small poppers are another effective lure in these shallow water situations. Expect some by-catch of tailor, whiting, flathead and even squid. Keep a squid Jig rigged and ready to go as quite often Squid will follow the lures. If the wind is up, surface lures become tricky, switch to shallow diving crank bait and you will be able to keep the bites coming. Cast long and follow up with a slow roll technique for results. Basically, wind it in just quickly enough to get the lure action moving.

Mulloway

Now is without a doubt the best time of the year to get into the school mulloway. Each year through spring they will congregate in certain areas in Moreton Bay and can be quite easy to catch. Of course, sometimes they just won’t bite and you can go home fish-less! My number one tool for avoiding this situation is my sounder. I tell people this, time and time again – these fish will move around and rarely stay still – so you constantly need to locate the schools. I will often drive around for long periods until I locate schools and many anglers echo this method. This way, you are ensuring you put your lure or bait as close to the fish as possible, instead of hoping they swim past. It’s a far more pro-active way of fishing! Schools could be made up of 10 fish or 100 fish, but when you see them on the sounder, you will definitely know. Quite often it will appear as a thick mass near the bottom, they will sit quite tight to each other.

Once located, mark the school with your GPS and try and stay as close to the mark as possible, keeping your lures in front of their faces. Once the fish move, start looking again and you will notice a pattern of the direction they are moving. I mark the school every time I see them, this way I can keep track of their movements and predict where they will be next. Lure choice isn’t crucial; just make sure that whatever you use is heavy enough to get down to the fish.

Snapper

The past month has seen a lot of pan-sized snapper caught. I’m yet to hear of any really big ones, but they should start pushing in over the next few months. The pick of locations to get a feed of snapper are Peel Artificial Reef and Harry Atkinson. Soft Plastics rigged on 1/4-½ Jig heads are the pick. It’s also worth trying out the Island Reef edges, especially around Peel Island. If you can get there just as the sun starts to hit the horizon you should see yourself with a good chance of getting into a few.

If you are able to get out over the next few weeks, be sure to give the mulloway a crack as they won’t be around in such large schools for too much longer. I’ve just got myself a new boat so I’m hoping to get out as much as possible as this great fishing continues. As always, if you have a picture or a story you would like to share, send it through to me at --e-mail address hidden-- and I’ll do my best to get it in next month’s magazine for you!

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The sort of bream you can expect during this summer!

Side scan images are worth every cent! This screen shot shows a large school of mulloway located to the left of the boat.